The former director of the Viet Nam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development's Branch No.6 Ho Dang Trung and his four staff members are charged with violating regulations on lending to credit organisations. — Photo baogiaothong.vn

HCM CITY (VNS) — The HCM City's People's Court yesterday began hearing the case of former director of the Viet Nam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development's Branch No.6 Ho Dang Trung and his four staff members, who allegedly caused a loss of roughly VND1 trillion to the bank.

The five men are charged with violating regulations on lending to credit organisations.

Duong Thanh Cuong, Thai Cuong former general directors of Tan Phat Joint Stock Company, Le Son Hung, Pham Hoang Tho, former director of Thanh Phat Joint Stock Company have been charged with cheating and appropriating hundreds of billions of dong from the branch.

Related to the case, Le Thanh Cong, former general director of Dong Phuong Company, and Do Trong Nhan, former director of Sieu Mau Viet Company were charged with abuse of power.

The court is chaired by Judge Vu Phi Long. Twenty lawyers will represent the accused.

According to the indictment, in 2007, the Dong Phuong Company cooperated with Duong Thanh Cuong's Company to build a trade and apartment complex on 17,000 sq.m of land in HCM City's Tan Phu District.

In order to have money for the investment, Cuong spoke with Trung to borrow the money.

After getting approval from the bank, Cuong asked his staff to file loan documents and mortgage the land in Tan Phu and another in District 8.

Though knowing the plot of land in Tan Phu District was not eligible for the loan, Trung and his staff approved the loan of VND170 billion.

A month after that, Cuong requested his staff to create documents for borrowing an additional VND628 billion for another project in Binh Chanh District.

He mortgaged 23 land-use rights certificates he had bought from local people for his first property project and three others.

Though the mortgaged property had not been transferred to Cuong's company, the bank insisted on accepting the loan request.